Information Systems Project Management

1
(No Transcript)
2
Information Systems Project Management

• Information Systems Project Management
• Time Management
• Part I

3
Time Management

• Now well move on to Time, the second leg of the
  project management triple constraint
• Per your author, the ordering of the triple
  constraint has a reason
• Have to know what to do before you know how long
  it will take
• Have to know what and for how long before you can
  estimate cost
• So what do you think of when you hear the term
  time management?

4
Time Management

• In the US, and in some Western European countries
  like Germany, Austria and the Scandinavian
  countries, things like being punctual, meeting
  deadlines and singular task focus are important

5
Time Management

• But in Southern Europe (France Spain), Latin
  America and China, the focus on time management
  is very different. Tasks are worked more in
  tandem than in sequence, and are completed based
  more on relationships than some prepared priority
  listing. In some cultures, delays are the norm

6
Time Management

• These are pretty sweeping generalizations, and
  there are of course subtle differences in how
  time and schedules are viewed from country to
  country
• But the important message is that the American
  view of time management isnt shared
  internationally
• We need to be acutely aware of this as we discuss
  time management within the context of project
  teams, which more and more are global in their
  composition

7
Time Management

• Apart from differences in internationals view of
  Time, some important Time concepts
• First, the WBS is a key input to scheduling
• Second, a resource breakdown structure (RBS) is
  prepared to list the resources available to the
  project
• Third, some idea of task duration and intensity,
  as well as sequence and dependencies, are needed
  to round out a schedule
• From your author
• Schedule issues breed the most project conflict
• Time is the triple constraint variable with the
  least flexibility

8
Time Management

• This is all very high level, and something were
  going to practice next class
• But before we do, lets cover this topic in
  greater detail, looking at the PMBOK

9
Time Management

• The PMBOK defines Time Management as the
  collection of processes required to allow for
  timely project completion
• Activity Definition
• Activity Sequencing
• Activity Resource Estimating
• Activity Duration Estimating
• Schedule Development
• Schedule Control

10
Time Management

• Activity definition identifies the specific
  activities needed to produce the project
  deliverables
• Differs from WBS in that it defines schedule
  activities versus deliverables
• May use rolling wave planning if later phases
  are not yet completely clear
• Results in activity list that carries time-based
  attribute information
• Milestone is significant event or marker with no
  duration
• Should, like all objectives, be SMART
• Specific
• Measurable
• Assignable
• Realistic
• Time-Framed

11
Time Management

• Activity definition (continued)
• Time-based attribute information is critical to
  schedule development, and includes
• Predecessor activities
• Successor activities
• Lead Times
• Lag Times

12
Time Management

• Activity definition (continued)
• A good example of a Predecessor / Successor
  relationship with a Lead Time modification is
  your fictional term project
• Could you write the first draft before you did
  the research? Not if you want a good grade
• But you probably could start the draft before the
  research was completed
• So Draft is a successor activity of Research, but
  Draft may be allowed some lead time

13
Time Management

• Activity Sequencing puts together all project
  activity dependencies, creating a project
  schedule network diagram
• Author lists three types of dependencies
• Mandatory (hard logic)
• Discretionary (soft logic)
• External
• Most common representation is Precedence Diagram
  Method (PDM), which shows activities in
  rectangles (nodes), and dependencies between
  those rectangles as arrows
• Another less common method is the Arrow
  Diagramming (ADM), which uses arrows for
  activities and connects them to circular nodes to
  show dependencies
• Concepts of bursts (one to many) and merges (many
  to one)

14
Time Management

• Remember the earlier individual research project
  Gantt Chart I showed you? That was a simple
  example of a network diagram
• Lets take another look at it

15
Research Project Gantt Chart
16
Time Management

• Notice that the rectangular boxes on the Gantt
  Chart represent project activity nodes, and the
  arrows represent the most common type of activity
  dependency, called Finish-To-Start (meaning a
  dependent successor must start after a
  predecessor completes)
• Other relationships (Start-Start, Finish-Finish,
  Start-finish) are less common

17
Time Management

• Based on our earlier discussion today, I could
  have shown a lead time for draft activity
  however, given the finite, non-expandable
  resource (1 person) and amount of time applied (5
  hours per week), this would extend the end date
  for the research, and the end result would be the
  same

18
Time Management

• Activity Resource Estimating gauges the
  type/quantity of resources required to perform
  each activity
• Helps to get a lot of the project teams input
  here
• Watch Training/Mentoring time and
  productivity/learning curves!
• Unlike your fictional individual research
  project, where you are the only resource, your
  fictional individual group project allows you to
  apply more than one resource to an activity
• How do you think this might affect a schedule?

19
Time Management

• On paper, it would shorten the schedule
• In reality, it might not
• What if you were given a new group member after
  you had started writing your draft?
• Or (Convergys example) what if you had been
  assigned two new India software developers to
  mentor with the expectation that your existing
  workload would not be decreased, and would still
  finish on schedule?

20
Time Management

• The brings us to Activity Duration Estimating,
  which takes it to the next step estimating how
  long it will take to finish the activity, now
  that we know
• How much effort the activity will take
• How many resources we can apply
• When it can start finish
• What the calendar constraints might be
• As your author says, dont confuse duration
  (amount of calendar time to complete a task) with
  effort (amount of effort to complete a task,
  which includes assumptions as to numbers of
  resources brought to bear)
• People will do the work should have input!

21
Time Management

• Activity Duration (cont)
• Calendar availability is an interesting sidebar
• Assume we were handed a project just prior to
  schedule creation, and were given vacation
  schedules for all potential project staff listed
  in the RBS. Having those vacation schedules,
  would you think we have all we need to know to
  finish the project schedule?

22
Time Management

• Activity Duration (cont)
• The answer would be No, on a global project
• That might be OK for French resources, where
  their vacation schedule would note their plans to
  take off the entire month of August
• It might even be OK in England, where strict
  labor laws make it illegal to mandate overtime
  work even when its needed in a crunch
• But it wouldnt be enough information to tell you
  that India staff take 17 holidays per year versus
  the typical 7 in the U.S.

23
Time Management

• Activity Duration (cont)
• As with our fictional project schedule, the
  element of risk is accounted for in each duration
  estimate, and the amount of extra time allocated
  is commonly referred to as Contingency

24
Time Management

• Activity Duration (cont)
• The PMBOK notes four types of estimates
• Expert Judgment
• Analogous (historical reference)
• Parametric (quantitative based on developed
  productivity rate)
• Three-Point (based on Most Likely, Optimistic and
  Pessimistic estimates)

25
Time Management

• Activity Duration Exercise
• One commonly used type of Three-Point Estimate is
  called a PERT Estimate. The PERT estimate is the
  sum of the optimistic, pessimistic and 4 times
  the most likely, all divided by six
• E (O 4(ML) P)/6
• It factors uncertainty / risk into the estimate

26
Time Management

• Activity Duration Exercise (cont)
• So if you were asked to compute a PERT estimate
  for an activity, where
• Most Likely duration is 7 days
• Worst case duration is 17 days
• Best case duration is 3 days
• What would your estimate be?

27
Time Management

• The answer is 8 days
• (3 7(4) 17) / 6 48 / 6 8
• Practically, most large projects use some form of
  parametric estimating technique
• Convergys developed a system using mechanized
  Excel-based drivers that were constantly updated
  with the latest actual project results we
  needed to do so due to productivity changes
  occurring as we added the new resources in India,
  and went through several waves of both growth and
  downsizing
• What do you think happens to productivity in
  periods of growth and downsizing?

28
Time Management

• Now that we know all that we need to know about
  each activity and its resources, we move to the
  next step, Schedule Development
• This is where it all comes together into a total
  project schedule
• Entire approved planned schedule is called
  schedule baseline
• This is a highly iterative process, because the
  first answer is never good enough, and
  adjustments are always made

29
Time Management

• We will be spending a lot more time with Schedule
  Development in next weeks classes
• For now, its enough to know that its here that
  you build your schedule from the bottom up,
  identify the critical path, make adjustments to
  resources and dependencies, and eventually the
  schedule is something that your project sponsor
  can live with

30
Time Management

• The last of the six Time Management Process
  Groups is Schedule Control, which per the PMBOK
  is concerned with
• Determining schedule status
• Influencing the factors that create schedule
  changes
• Determining that the project schedule has changed
• Managing the changes as they occur

31
Time Management

• Schedule Control (continued)
• Schedule Performance Measurements are taken and
  Schedule Variance Analysis done, which we will
  cover later in the course
• Corrective actions are determined as conditions
  change and correction is needed these are logged
  as lessons learned for use by other projects

32
Time Management

• Schedule Management/Control (additional author
  notes)
• Complex organizational behavior accounted for by
  allocating additional resources (or only
  resourcing 75 of time)
• PM should do independent schedule progress
  verification
• PM must be clear honest in communicating status
• People aspects not technical are the most
  difficult, so leadership skills are paramount for
  effective PMs
• PMs need to show skill and courage in presenting
  defending project estimates, and negotiating
  any changes thereto

33
Time Management

• I think weve covered enough for today
• Any questions on Time Management?

34
Summary/QA

• Any other Questions?

35
Next Class

• Well be covering Part II of Time a guest
  speaker
• Jeff Cohen, a former 1st level project management
  employee of mine, will come in to tell you what
  its like to put together a global project
  schedule
• Reading Supplemental Reading on NASA
• Have a good and productive week!